The greatest of Malay empires, Sri Vijaya, had its beginning
at
Palembang which lying at the south of Sumatra dominated the Straits of
Sunda.
With its capital at Bukit Seguntang, the Buddhist pilgrim I-Tsing in
671
A.D. described it as an important centre of Buddhist learning, with
more
than a thousand monks devoting their days to study and good works. Four
inscriptions
in old Malay throw light on this Buddhist Sri Vijaya. The oldest from
the
foot of Bukit Seguntang records that on I 3 April 683 a king went by
sea
to acquire magic power and on May 8th left the estuary with 20,000 men,
as
a result of which he conferred on Sri Vijaya victory, power and riches.
That
king was probably Jayanasa who, in the following year, founded a public
garden
at Talang Tua some four miles from Bukit Seguntang and had an
inscription
carved expressing the hope that this and other good works would help
him
on the road to illumination. Inscriptions elsewhere invoked curses upon
their
inhabitants if they contemplate rebellion against the king or his
officials.

Inscriptions also indicated an expedition in 686 against Java
and
a Sanskrit inscription in Ligor shows that by 775 Sri Vijaya had a
footing
in northern Malaya, having conquered Kedah and a large part of the west
coast.
It mentions a king entitled Sri Maharaja, a descendant of the Sailendra
family
and described as the "destroyer of his enemies". The Sailendras, or
Kings
of the Mountain, were originally rulers of the Cambodian Funan Empire,
who
became kings of Middle Java and become famous as the builders of
Borobudur.
Their descendants were to rule not only Palembang but Kedah (known
variously
as Kataha, and Kadaram).

In the world of commerce, Sti Vijaya, now called Sanfo-ts'i
by
the Chinese and Zabag or Sribuza by the Arabs, rapidly
rose
to be a far-flung empire controlling the two passages between India and
China,
namely the Sunda Straits from Palembang and the Malacca Straits from
Kedah.
Arab accounts state that the empire of the Maharaja was so large that
in
two years the swiftest vessel could not travel round all its islands,
which
produced camphor, aloes, cloves, sandal-wood, nutmegs, cardamom and
cubebs,
ivory, gold and tin, making the Maharaja as rich as any king in the
Indies.
In 990 A.D. Java appears to have attacked Sri Vijaya, which asked for
China's
protection. In 1006 Sri Vijaya seems to have burnt the capital of its
Javanese
enemy and slain the king and many of his chiefs.

A year before that, Chulamanivarmadeva, described in
inscriptions
as "the king of Kataha (Kedah) and Srivishaya", built a
Buddhist temple
at Negapatam, which the Chola King Rajaraja I supported with the
revenue
of a large village. Sri Vijayan relics have been found in various parts
of
Kedah and Perak. Chinese maps put Sri Vijaya right in the middle of the
Malay
Peninsula. Even Portuguese histories of I5I2 tells how Kedah in the
middle
of the fifteenth century still claimed tribute from Perak, Manjong,
Bemam,
Selangor and Malacca, obviously as heir to "Kataha."

For six hundred years or more Kedah became an important port
of
call for Chola-mandala (Coromandel). But in A.D. I0I7 Coromandel's
famous
ruler, Rajendra Chola I, made war on Sri Vijaya and, in 1025,
overhwelmed
it and her colonies in the Malay Peninsula. Sri Vijaya seems to have
recovered
from this setback, only to be attacked in 1068 by another Chola king,
Vira
Rajendra. Vira Rajendra conquered Kedah, apparently at the request of
its
ruler who wanted to win independence from Sri Vijaya.

However, the Empire was already falling to pieces. Wars became
frequent,
primarily due to trade rivalries, and this degenrated to piracy. The
capital
of the great empire sank to be a den of pirates. By the end of eleventh
century,
Jambi (or Melayu), Langkasuka, Ligor, Acheh and other countries that
were
part of Sri Vijaya were now independent - with Jambi playing the role
of
dominant power. Jambi did not have aspirations for a maritime,
far-flung
empire overseas but turned its attention to Sumatra's highlands and
found
what was to become the kingdom of Minangkabau.

On the peninsula, Ligor took over the mantle from Sri Vijaya.
Its
king Candrabhanu attacked Sri Lanka first in 1247 and again in 1270.
Inscriptions
indicate that Candrabhanu also ruled Kedah, from which he launched his
expeditions
across the Indian Ocean. The Thais were to later subjugate this
kingdom,
leading to Thais domination of much of the northern peninsula in the
years
to come.

In 1275 the famous Kartanagara, ruler of east Java, sent his
Javanese
forces against Sumatra and conquered Jambi and much of Pahang. Some
time
between 1338 and 1365, his successors - the Majaphit Empire - conquered
all
of Sumatra, bringing to an end the days of the first and perhaps
greatest
of all Malay Empires.

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